Kentucky's art and craft
community will pay special honor to the late ceramicist Byron Temple of
Louisville, Kentucky, with this year's Rude Osolnik Award. The award honors its
namesake, Rude Osolnik, the nationally acclaimed wood turner from Berea, Kentucky, who devoted his life to the
development of his craft and teaching.
This prestigious award recognizes artists for their contributions to the
craft community, preservation of craft traditions through teaching and sharing,
and exemplary workmanship. Previous recipients are Alma Lesch, Emily Wolfson,
Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, Homer Ledford, Joseph Molinaro, and Stephen Rolfe
Powell.
Born in 1933 in Centerville, Indiana,
Temple studied at Indiana's Ball State
University, Brooklyn Museum
of Art School, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He then became apprenticed to
Bernard Leach in St. Ives,
England from
1958-1961. From 1962-1989, Temple established and
operated a production pottery in Lambertville, NJ, making mostly functional tableware. A
prolific artist, at one point in his career he supplied Nieman Marcus,
Bloomingdales, and Macys with 15,000 pots a year. A shift in his focus to more
artistic work prompted his retirement from production pottery in the late '80s,
coinciding with his move to the Louisville, Kentucky area. He considered his personal
style to be sleek, simple, and slim, a combination of the Bauhaus and
Japan. Temple continued to conduct workshops, lectures and
seminars, at venues ranging from Penland and Haystack Craft Schools to the Smithsonian and the
Philadelphia College of Art, among others.
His work is in
numerous collections and museums including the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen of
Rotterdam, the Smithsonian, the American Craft Museum,
the Speed Art
Museum, and the Taipei
Fine Arts Museum
in Taiwan. His work is regularly shown at the
Artifacts Gallery in Berea.
Byron temple passed away in April
2002 in Louisville,
Kentucky at the age of 68, leaving
behind a reputation for being one of the leading voices and influences on
ceramics today. 'He was generous in his teaching,
disciplined and insightful,' says ceramist artist Gwen Heffner. 'He mentored
many artists who point to him as the major influence on them, as both artists
and people.'
Temple will be honored
posthumously at a dinner Friday, August 9, 2002, in conjunction with On Center
at Centre, a workshop weekend presented by the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation
and the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program, in Danville, Kentucky.
